I mean business this time!

Things have been quiet here on the blog recently, but there’s a reason for that. It’s called the school holidays.

I realised ahead of time that it would be foolish to think I could concentrate on my novel. That’s not innate wisdom, by the way – it’s learned from past optimism.

So, I stacked everything in a neat-ish pile, and thought about Christmas instead. Huh? you ask. Yes, August is the time to be writing Christmas stories for magazines, and I figured I had more chance of completing short term projects during the Summer holidays.

And I found it was really good to concentrate on short stories in a chunk of time like that, rather than more randomly when inspiration struck. So I think I’ll adjust my approach in future and focus on specific seasonal markets (which is probably what you’re meant to do, but despite paying attention to advice, I still tend to only really ‘get’ it through experience).

So, stories written and submitted (plus one commission! Whoop! Whoop!), the kids are back at school, and now it’s time to pull out the manuscript. I’m near the end of a second draft now. I had the first three chapters assessed, which was really really useful, so I’ll send the rest off too, so there’ll be a third draft looming after that. But… I mean business this time. This is the third novel I’ve written, but this feels like the right one to send out.